"Your own posts aren't even consistent with full determinism. "Depart from her, if you can"? If full determinism is true, then all "can" rests with God, and none with me. For you to tell Catholics, "Depart from her, if you can" makes as much sense as me opening a cupboard in my kitchen and telling the dishes "Jump down from there, if you can"."

None of the dishes in your cupboard are being managed into salvation. Some humans (being managed like dishes) are.

My fingers ran away with John 16, which s/b John 6. Now go read it and tell me you see nothing there.

But, with Romans 6, you will need to read on to see "rest of the story" and find out what a "free gift" means to Paul. Romans 9:16ff "So then, it does not depend upon the man who runs (acts) or the man who wills (chooses), but upon God...So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" May wish to read Paul's answer. There is something about men being treated like dishes...but it is by their Maker. And He disagrees with you.

Which makes absolutely no difference to what they "can" do based on your exhortations, which is absolutely ... nothing. Full determinism, as I said, puts all "can" squarely on God's shoulders. You would be more self-consistent to pray that God would lead me out of Catholicism. Even that isn't very self-consistent.

Now go read it and tell me you see nothing there.

I assume you're talking about 6:37-39?

All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. ... 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing

Nobody's talking about Jesus losing anyone of those the Father has given him. God foresees who will reprobate himself, and who will not, and he doesn't give Jesus any reprobates.

That has nothing to do with whether or not reprobation is the free choice of the reprobate, or is conditional on those free choices, or anything like that. (God foresees all of those free choices, too, but does so without coercing them.)

Romans 9:16ff

The context of which concerns nations, not specific individuals, and consists of Paul reasoning out what God could be doing that would cause him to leave Israel out in the cold while offering salvation to the Gentiles.

But that leads me back to an error you made in an earlier post, confusing what God can do with what God actually does do. There is no question that God is capable of completely determining every thought I have and every action I take. That's not what the argument is. The argument is over what he actually does do, most of the time.

Did the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son drive his son away, or did he merely permit him to leave?

51 posted on 10/10/2011 6:27:03 PM PDT by Campion
("Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies when they become fashions." -- GKC)